So, I've been trying to write up a session report here and there for my Geek Blog. It's been a while. I had one of those 'perfect' gaming weekends this past weekend and was thinking of writing one up. But, not one game really stood out (ok one did, but I'll save that for later). It was the weekend as it's entirety that made it.

My wife was going to be out of town with the two girls, so that just left my son and I at home all weekend. Alex, my son, also had something to do Friday night.

So, I sent out the general call to arms (games) to the usual suspects for gaming the entire weekend.

People were trickling in. It was about 6:30 Friday night. Someone said hey what about that Witch game. I didn't saw you that game witch makes fun of wicans riding brooms, but knew which game they wanted.

So, I pulled it out. There were four of us I think at this point. czrdup (Charles), Max and Wally (Rygel) and I.

A couple had not played before, but they caught on quick. It was a close game decided by the crossing of the finishing line.

But, as there were a couple new people, they wanted to try it again. Another close one decided at the finishing line.

We all had a lot of fun. It's a good little game, almost a party game. Easy to learn and it seems that everyone that has played it likes it.

When I ran across this game a few months back it wasn't released as an English game and I hunted it down, but ended up not buying it. So, when it was produced in English, I was very happy. I thought the concept was very neat. But, I was worried as it didn't sound like a game I'd really like. But, game won me over though.

Well there was four of us. I might just get to play a game I've been trying to get to the table for a long time. Antiquity. But, while I brush up on the rules a bit, let's pull out something. Ok, so they all wanted to play this.

It's new to the group, so it's kinda a hot item right now. I'm just not sure about it. I don't mind Yatzhee, but this one just seems like it's to much about the one last roll. Why not just randomly deal out 5-6 cards and then roll off once?

It's not like I hate the game, I just don't think it's all that great.

Antiquity right? Well a fifth showed up. So, we tossed around some ideas. We wanted a meaty game, so I tossed this one out. I had read through the rules twice, but no one had played it before. The rules were relatively short. So, we decided to give it a go. I tried to explain it, but I'm not good at explaining things and people started going off on rule tangents. So, we finally decided to get started and work it out as we went. We were about a half a turn in when Neil (thoia) showed up, so we gave him the 30 second intro and through him in, so we had a full game of six.

There was a lot of discussion about which ones could be attacked when and how. While the 'cheat' sheet looks great, there were still a lot of questions. The rule book was somewhat annoying as, we would try to find rules there and it seems scattered and not clear.

Also, the rules state in setup, that the turn counter starts on the election space. One of the first things is to move the turn counter forward one space. Then if the counter is on elections, you hold one, otherwise go one. Well at this point the counter isn't on the elections space and there are no officers so turn order is all by d6. There is no exception to moving the counter on the first turn, there is no exception to holding elections in turn one even though the counter isn't on the election space when you get to the election phase. Well we thought it was weird but played on. During turn two we decided there had to be elections at some point, so off to the Geek. Didn't have time to look up all the question, but this one had to be answered. Well, it didn't come out and say don't move or hold without. But, in another answer to another question it did mention elections in turn one.

So, a quick turn two elections just to get things going again.

Well we have been playing a few hours and everyone was at each others throats it seemed. Not really because of the game, but more the annoyance of the rules and not being sure what they really meant by things. Problem with short rules and a negotiation/conquest game, is there always becomes the discussion of grey area and loop holes. The rules just didn't go far enough.

Neil had a commanding led and everyone was ganging up on him. Max had 'given' me a card just to knock him down. He started to make his move, I and that card was the only thing stopping him. Max said something to me about it and I said "nah, I think I'll hold on to it." He succeeded and won the game. Well, I'm not much for all out kingmaking, but the thing is I was the next turn away from winning too. But, there rest of them were a bit further behind. If I didn't succeed in the next turn (and I kinda needed that card to succeed) it would have dragged another 3 turns. So, I figure I was kingmaking against myself so that was ok. At this point most people weren't having fun.

I'd try this game again. Now that I've played it, I know what needs to be researched. Problem is there are to many games that we'd rather play . I think we'll try Imperial next time we are at 6 and looking for a long game.

Near the end of Galactic Destiny, Edmund (kegdrainer) showed up. (another reason to end the game). We hadn't seen him in a while and he hasn't been able to game much because he started a new job. That was 7 of us. But, I had pissed off Max, so he said he was going home and may or may not show up the next night. It was late (past midnight) so Jeremy also took off. Down to 5. That meant the groups current favorite could come out (ok can it be a fav if we've only played it 3 times).

What's up with this game? An Eagle game WITHOUT dice?

I can't express how much fun this game is. And if everyone pays attention, it runs quickly. Also, it seems there is a lot of paths to victory. Plus, early leads in this game can disappear quickly.

I'm normally a very territory grabbing type of player. This time I decide to go for trade goods and see if I can go for a victory that way. So, I went hard for the sugars and trade good and had a set of three at the end of turn one. Landing in the new world for the most part was reserved for grabbing trade goods. Apparently, though Wally wanted to go for the exact same thing and I kept ahead of him. So, before the first scoring Wally decided he had not chance at winning and basically stopped playing. Even though he had the largest contingency of soldiers in the new world. By half way through the game Edmund challenged me for trade goods and even taken the rum distillery out from under me. So, I decided to switch to just massing income (close enough to massing trade good). I had a nice size fleet so I'd get that building for collecting money from players. Although at this point Wally even refused to take income 'because it didn't matter'. Well it mattered to me and he was trying to deprive ME of income. Well, then come Edmund again snaking the Navy from me too. There were plenty of money making ops, so I switched to purely money making.

In the end though, I needed to get more point from territories. I did get quite a few from discoveries (a way to make money) but onely got a few second places the three scoring rounds.

I love how there are so many choices, but so little ability to do a lot. Very good game.

Well it was past 3 am now, so everyone dispersed. I just said come when ever, we'll be playing. Neil did want to get a couple two player games in, so he said he'll try and show up early.

So, I get up a little past 11 am. The phone rings, it's Neil. "When you want me to come over?" I replied "anytime really", "ok see you in about 15 minutes"

Wow, gaming started by noon.

I've had this game for a while. I mentioned I'm not very good at teaching games. Well, the casting shadows isn't something I felt like going through in the past. But, Neil and I figured we could sit down and learn it at the same time.

I was a VERY pleasant game. Although with two people there didn't seem to be a lot of conflict. Even on the smaller board we rarely fought each other for any areas, there was plenty for all. Although I realized if we just kept building on our own, we would just keep pace with each other, so in the last two turns a attacked his main point earner and took it over. that was the difference in the game. I think with 4 players this will be a great game. (I don't think I'll play it again with 2).

So, while playing Khronos, my son mentions that he wants to go to Toys R Us for some Pokemon' thing. I don't understand going out of my way for some virtual coding for a computer game. I had a guest now and real gaming is about. But, I thought about it anyway and the dad guilt came on. But, I live in a college town and it was a game day. There was nooo way I'm going out into that traffic. So, I explain that to him and invite him to join us. He did. But, he's very picky in his games. He doesn't like games with direct conflict and he doesn't like games where there are to many options (he hated Mission: Red Planet). So, he picked California, some player screwing and somewhat hard to plan out based on draw of tiles. but, he still likes this one.

We had never played with 3 players so the boards were new to us. I wasn't use to not have some free spaces. But, it was interesting to say the least.

we had a lot of fun. I think I won. Alex likes to be way to structured in in mansion and sometimes forgoes easy points for the long plan.

I've been trying not to buy games that the 'group' already has or that are likely to buy on their own. However, my some is 13 and a Boy Scout. They are always playing Munchkin or Risk at camp outs. So, I picked this up in hopes of diversifying them.

My son thought it sounded interesting, so we pulled it out. I had never played it with three people, but Neil is really good at this game and I thought it would be a good teaching experience for him. We did play with the chance of a Traitor. I was a bit worried, I didn't know how my son would react if he was the traitor. He's a VERY straight black and white thinker. And he doesn't like to kid around much either. So, this game could be a stretch for him as it is.

Well, first off even though I like this game, I'm a fairly non-fun loving black and white kinda guy too. So, sometimes, it's hard for me to 'get into character'. But, my son surprised me and dove right in. Going far beyond using metaphors and accents then I've seen most adults do. So, I was very happy.

The game was kicking us fairly hard. We had lost excaliber, we were close to losing the grail. I was playing the guy that let me look at the top card and that was working out well. But, we just couldn't get enough done.

I played Clairvoyance right before losing excaliber. And the cards were all fairly bad. The worst part was that Neil and I were both in danger. Hovering around 1 point of Life and the lose one from Morgan was in that set. We were both on quests and I had to get back to camelot to heal before Morgan came out. So, I had to stack the deck to lose excaliber to give Neil and I enough time to heal.

Alex jumped up and completed the Lancelot's armor. But, even though Neil and I keep suffering life. Neil indicated that he thought Alex was the traitor. Alex plays VERY conservation in every game. Never spending enough money or taking enough risk. But, it was beginning to look like he was playing beyond conservatism. I was pondering. But, if I was wrong that would be bad and if I was right then he'd be exposed with the armor. It was a lose-lose to accuse, so I just went on playing. I want to stay in Camelot to draw some cards, maybe heal some. But, the siege engines were plying up. We had lost the grail by now too. So, my three Grail cards would only be use for healing me. I decided to throw down 8 fight and knock out a siege engine first. I rolled an 8. Oh, I forgot that if I lost I'd lose a life and I only had one left. Out of the game for me.

Neil got revealed as the traitor and Alex tried, but it was to late. There wasn't enough time for him to get some white swords on the table and Camelot was over run by siege engines.

All in all I was surprised at how much fun it was with only three players. And more surprised how well Alex adapted to the game.

Not nearly enough pictures for this game. A beautiful game! I bought this a while ago to add to my coffee table collection. I hadn't even noticed that it's the only Ludo Art game that doesn't come in a wooden box.

The real problem, the cards are in German. So, I hadn't gotten around to playing this game because of that. But, surprisingly Alex was fine with reading cheat sheets. It's a VERY simple game.

So, we get to playing. Moving around playing action cards. It's Spanish of the Pirate Main with all the excess rules stripped out. With a touch of Winds of Plunder thrown in. The simplicity in this case improves the game. I was actually amazed at how much fun it was.

So, now Wally shows up again. Alex is getting tired of gaming, but he's willing to play one more. We pulled out Hansa. It's easy enough to teach and fairly quick.

I really like this game with 4 players. You can't just sit there and plan out every move. You have to adapt to what other players are doing.

The game went quick. Wally was sitting on Neil's left and complaining about being abused by Neil. I guess I lucked out, because Alex was on my left, but didn't mess with me much. Remember earlier about him playing very conservative? Well, he played each round in order to end the round with exactly 3 coins. Never more or never less. So, he gave up a couple chances to move the boat past me, or to get that trade good he could have used, because it would have brought him to less then three gold.

So, now we are down to three people. The perfect number! (for The End of the Triumvirate).

There's parts of this game I really like. I really like combat. I like that actions are sooo limited. But, some how I still feel it's missing something.

So, I played Caesar. After the first election I won. We were only half way through the second 'cycle' when Neil had 7 countries. So, he pushed everything into taking those last two. And he did. If he hadn't I had plenty of money and could have gotten to 6 citizens on my next turn.

I was a little disappointed how easy it was to get to the win for both of us. This was only the second time playing and last time in went down to the forth election.

Well, we were looking for another game for three players. This comes up, Neil and I look at each other and kinda say ahhhh I don't know. But, Wally said, hey I've never played it.

So, we pulled it out and taught him. The game went fairly quick. This is one of those games, I enjoy. But, I don't see that it varies to much. Each turn there is a best move and the first person tends to make it.

Neil and I were skeptical about pulling it out, not that we didn't like it, but we have always played it with 4 and weren't sure how it would play with three. I'd have to say, now we've done it and we don't have to do that again. Not that I thought it was horrible, but it was obvious that it really is a 4 player game and it sooo hits the sweet spot.

I introduced the 2nd edition to the gaming group a few months ago and everyone has really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it so much I went ahead and bought this edition when it came out.

So, we decided to give it a go. I had already played it twice, but I don't think either Wally or Neil had played the new one yet and were eager to try it out.

It was a fairly standard start. Run around getting knowledge. Neil fell into some lucky draws and built up some congresses. I made the first jump into digging and dug in two place in the first turn. I have some very good luck. Wally and Neil on the other hand had some very bad luck digging. Neil's luck was so dismal that he made a dash for getting max congresses. It came down to the wire. Wally had a few knowledge points and some artifacts. Neil had a few artifact and some exhibits. I was almost exclusively invested in artifacts, but had three of the knowledge.

It can down to the end. Could Neil get that last congress? Well, it came up, but in order to get there and claim it he'd be one week oout of time.

He's not been able to play board games in forever and is a big train game nut. We tossed around a Crayon game, but at this time of night we really didn't feel like it started.

So we pulled this out. And hammered through it at amazing speed. I'm one of those that likes to place as I'm drawing, it seems I'm always getting blocked. I at a couple average runs. But, got blocked out of New Orleans to Miami so I had to zig zag around the eastern seaboard. So, I started to pick up tickets to get some free points. I ended up completing 7 of them, but they were relatively small point one and only earned around 0 points on tickets. (lost 12 point when I ran out of time one city from Duluth).

Edmond though had taken the long route to the north, we all knew it. He also had the longest route. But then he pulled out two more of the 20+ routes. In all he had three of the 20+ routes all completed and ran away with it.

So, Neil took off. Edmond really didn't feel three player crayon games were worth, after all there's no blocking really at that number. But, there were three of us that liked these games and nothing better on the table. So we start it up.

I'm normally not very good at these games, but I like them anyway. I get a great draw of loads. A couple 24+ loads all close to each other. So, I run out into the led and was the first to get a 12 speed train and first fro 3 load/12 speed too. Edmond isn't far behind with some really good loads too. Wally misread one of his loads and built track for a route he didn't need (he already delivered it). The Nuke War cards really didn't come into play, but a couple did get played against me forcing me to lose some money. Edmond had some very good track laid throughout the land, while I really only had track laid in the north and just the bare minimum to get the City connections in the south. Wally's luck turned around and he started getting good loads about the time I stopped getting good loads. I had about 150mil and was connected to all cities. But, Edmond had been steady the whole time so I knew he was close. So, I spent 3 or 4 turns just redrawing loads. Sure I could have been delivering small routes, but that wasn't going to get me to catch Ed. Wally in the me time had caught up and I was fairly sure past me. Then came the inevitable, Edmond announced the win. Wally had surpassed me and almost caught Edmond.